The Secularity of India

Nader.
You did well to point out the paradox. Secular ideally, in a less polar environment wouldnt mean Hindu and Muslim. The very words would be irrelevant to politics or law. BUT
I disagree. It was a brave and difficult ideal in those times, with one community creating an entire different country. Yes their laws are seperate for each community. The Western model is different. It probably wasnt practical to poke at Muslim Laws in this charged atmosphere of partition. The fact is that it strives to be secular, in an environment where people are willing to kill anyone and anybody who is of a different religion, it is truly commendable. I hope that India never loses that ideal. As the Hindu identity becomes more and more secure, the path towards secularism will be more firmly entrenched. It remains to ordinary people always to change the political destinies of a nation. Writers poets, journalists, scientists, these are the intellectualls of a country. These people`s opinions, morals and biases are of great importance to the politics of a nation. The fact that there is a live, questioning media and middle class in India, that one observes with great interest, is truly a positive sign.

So, do Muslims in India want to migrate to Pakistan?

Nader,

This is a timely article. To help understand your position better, would you tell us

1. Why being a non-secular state may not be wrong? Isn`t officially-sponsored discrimination against citizens based on their religion in and of itself wrong?

2. what your understanding of proper secularism is.

3. How do the laws of India not treat a Muslim like a Hindu, or a Hindu like a Zoroastrian. This is your most serious charge so some details will be helpful.

I hope Indians will use this opportunity to exchange considered opinions on this important subject, not launch ad-hominem attacks on the author.

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Saima has said pretty much what I would have liked to say in this regard.
Secularism in India is like running a coalition government in democracy.For the common good and peaceful coexistence, you have to concede to some demands to the hardliners of all religions.Observing from afar, reading news and judging on the basis of personal laws,it may appear that India falters on the definition for secularism on some grounds.But, to experience the secular fabric, you have to know more about India.And the fact is, riots have actually gone down since the late 80s or early 90s ,in most places,as far as I can remember. Meerut and Hyderabad were two places that are traditonally prone to communal riots.Things have improved lately there.
I think, the nature of secularism in India is not because ``church is not separated from state`` but more because of the drawbacks of practising a democracy, than anything else.

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ranimirza

An unfair question. The author is discussing India, not making comparative statements, except for some unclear references to the `closure` that Pakistan has supposedly attained.

Oh boy - here is another paki sermon on secularism. It`s like listening to a fish giving a lecture on how to ride a bicycle :)

Even then - this paki does make some valid points. Secularism , like democracy in India, is only skin deep. More in form - and less in substance.

The worthy ``leaders`` and ``intellectuals`` in India have erred on both sides. We have commies and morons who promote ultra-orthodoxy in muslims, while at same time preaching secularism to hindus. We have a DMK jacka$$ denouncing hinduism from a public meeting - with a mullah sitting on one side and a bishop on the other.

We have had secular Prime Ministers who amended the constiution .... no less ... to appease mullahs and then opened gates of he!! to calm down the outraged hindus.

Then there are folks for whom tribal soul harvesting by bishops is OK - but when their hindu counterparts from VHP learn to do the same - that`s bad.

Which basically erodes further any secular pretensions and makes the majority community cynical - they call it pseudo-secularism, minority-appeasing .... and rightly so.

So when the backlash starts - the ``intellectuals`` who were watching the chicanery silently until now - jump up and down and start their sermons. Of course then it is too late.

This kind of shallow propaganda will not get you very far. Your marvellously silly idea that

[quote]
Perhaps the most telling illustration of this is the fact that the laws of India do not treat a Muslim like a Hindu, or a Hindu like a Zoroastrian. A secular state where all men are not equal under the law? I rest my case.
[end-quote]

is a nice illustration of your child-like thinking. You are referring to personal laws here, it has nothing to do with the state promoting or interfering with religion. There is a long history of maintianining some distinctions in personal law in India. Probably you believe that unless a society is a carbon copy of a western christian country, it cannot be secular.

Here is a real article on the subject. Maybe if you read and learn a little you might actually get some insight into the subject. But careful, that might require some thought and not just parrotting whatever your local JNU shakha teaches you to memorize.

---

http://www.washingtontimes.com/op-ed/20040530-103654-7736r.htm

In India, parties overlap


By Raju G. C. Thomas





The defeat of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in the recent 2004 national elections, and the return to power of the Indian secularist Congress Party led by Sonia Gandhi, does not suggest a major reversal in religious ideology. Congress and BJP were never far apart, except to reflect the changing times after capitalism triumphed over socialism by the early 1990s. Hindu nationalism and Indian secularism overlap.

The three Indian secularisms:

Following independence in August 1947, Congress Party governments under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and his successors declared India to be a secular democratic state, distinguishing itself from Pakistan, which was judged to be a theocratic authoritarian state. However, interpretations of secularism in India have not been consistent. Nehru`s interpretation was that of the West. The state will not engage in religious activities nor promote any religion. Mahatma Gandhi`s interpretation suggested that all religions are equal, and that the state will encourage the practice of all religions equally. According to the Hindu nationalist perspective, Hinduism acknowledges different pathways to God and, therefore, all Indians are Hindus. This view threatened to overwhelm the identities of Muslims, Christians and Sikhs.

All three interpretations of secularism prevailed concurrently in independent India. But it was Nehru`s Western concept that was overriding on the grounds that the separation of state and religion was an essential prerequisite for the conduct of Western democracy. But the concurrent prevalence of the Gandhian interpretation implied that Western secularism could easily slide into the Hindu nationalist variant. It is not a big step from ``all religions are equal,`` to ``all Indians are Hindus whatever their faith.`` This interpretation began to be imposed by the Hindu nationalists in the 1990s.

Hindu nationalism

Hindu nationalism, represented by the BJP, failed to be an election winner despite the fact that 82 percent of Indians are Hindus. Instead, Indian secularism represented by the Congress Party won. However, apart from Sonia Gandhi being a Christian who has embraced the Hindu way of life, Congress Party leaders were equally Hindu as the BJP. The question was which party represented the real Hinduism. The problem was that the demands of some of the more radical Hindu nationalists, such as that of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) for a ``Hindutva,`` appeared not only ``un-Indian`` but also ``un-Hindu.`` They promoted the concept of Hindutva in two separate contexts. First, that all Indians must recognize ``the essence of being Hindu`` as a way of life, including followers of other religions in India. Second, they sought to establish a political state called Hindutva, the land of the Hindus, replacing the various earlier connotations represented by ``India`` (the British legacy), ``Hindustan`` (the Muslim legacy) and Bharat (the legacy of the Buddhist emperor Ashoka of the 4th century BCE).

The rise and fall of Hindutva

First, Hindutva, in the context of Hindu essence, made no sense since Hindus do not believe in organized religion or an organized religious lifestyle. Hinduism is a ``come as you are`` religion. The Hindu masses resisted being told how to live like a Hindu, especially efforts to promote a focus on the god Rama in a land of several reincarnations of god. There was a temple-building spree in India over the last decade, funded often by the wealthy Hindu diaspora in the United States, which was also the main supporter of the BJP. But these Hindu temples lay largely empty. Hindus in India preferred the old relaxed religious lifestyle.

Second, Hindutva as a Hindu state posed problems among those who could not identify with it: the sizeable religious minorities who constituted 18 percent of the population or 180 million; the uncertain religious-ethnic status of the former ``untouchables`` now known as Dalits, who are probably around 25 percent, or 250 million; and the potential transformation of the traditional practice of Hinduism from what was essentially a way of life into a more intense faith that required regular practice and commitment. There was a groundswell of opposition among the Hindu majority against this imposition by the Hindu nationalists, and no support for it from the Muslims, Christians and the Dalits.

The return to Indian secularism

Hinduism is a secular religion. Therefore, India remained a secular state, whether the government was headed by Congress or BJP, but often against the protests of the more radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), who felt betrayed. While the Hindu secularists of the Congress Party never sought to discover their religious roots or to make demands on non-Hindus, radical Hindu nationalists of the VHP and RSS sought such a national religious identity and to change the practice of Hinduism itself. They were rejected but they will rebound sooner or later.

Raju G. C. Thomas is the Allis Chalmers Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University.

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I agree with the author.

India is not completely secular.

Government policies and laws, mostly, have been anti-Hindu.

What we are seeing , despite temporary setbacks, is a correction of these discriminatory policies.

- Avkrishna

Nader,

First up, there`s a factual error in your
``It’s hard to dismiss the fact that more than half of India’s provinces face insurgencies, often based on religious differences.``
Could you care to elaborate how?

I agree that secularism in india has not been fully enforced. But so are issues of caste equality or gender equality. We have many issues besides just secularism. I think, all of these are symptoms of bad governance, not their reasons.
I`ve lived outside of india for the last ten years, and be rest assured there`s a very strong anti-minority hysteria in the US too. Be it openly flouted in the media due to terrorism or job migration or many other reasons.
``the burning alive of missionarys immediately springs to mind``.

Just one missionary not missionaries. And yes a foreginer, whose murder was covered in headlines for two weeks and the blame thrown on bajrang dalw/o any proof. Contrast this with 8 indians killed in saudia just recently by al-qaida. How many leading national dailies in india have covered it in their headlines? This is the quality of indian press for you.

To put the onus of declining secularism on bjp is adding fuel to the fire which prompted bjp to win majority in first place. I`ve often felt that in india, the greatest threat to secularism is not from BJP, but from people like you who believe that congress was nudged towards hindutva due to BJP. The truth is other way round. And for as long as indian media fails to take cognisance of facts on ground, BJP will whip up more communal frenzy in order to out do their opposition in the same game.

``Perhaps the most telling illustration of this is the fact that the laws of India do not treat a Muslim like a Hindu, or a Hindu like a Zoroastrian. A secular state where all men are not equal under the law?``

I don`t believe you ever read the manifesto of BJP. One of the points is called uniform civil code. accroding to your own logic, the party espousing this principle should be the most secular. I rest my case too.

Adios

The Secularity of India - that would be a good idea